Not so sporadic quiltmaking, just sporadic blogging...

A serious stitching push has resulted in six quilt tops, and a seventh under way.

First three are from Bonnie Hunter's 2013 year-end mystery, Celtic Solstice.  During the mystery time I had cut enough to make the bigger size, but after quilting two king-sized quilts earlier this year, knew I didn't want another one that big, so made the first one double bed size.

Some (blurry) details:

Then worked on number two, about single bed size.  Changed most of the Crown block to be stars.

And still there were units left, so this was number three, which I think is my favourite!

 I am not apologising for the aircon unit in the way - I don't dare move it as the exhaust tubing is fragile, and with temperatures this week hovering around 35 deg Celcius (95 F) I want it working.

 

Next up was this Flying Geese from Block Lotto winnings.

Then two quilts from collaboration with Mum and daughter C:

Details of one of the block centres:

And Allietare! Part 5

Parts 1 to 4 - am really enjoying this mystery!  But I suspect I will have to make more of some of the units :(

Three more blocks for December Lotto:

And finally some in-between-seams sewing - actually quite a few more than this, but covered up by the current quilt on the design boards.

And these two hand pieced paper-based hexagons for our regional guild.  Talking of which, it has a colourful new web-site.

Friday night Four-patches

Gold and neutral four-patches for Allietare Part 3.

I needed to haul out some fat quarters and bigger pieces as there was very little suitable pre-cut strips for the gold colour.  The neutral strips are all still coming from the left-overs from Celtic Solstice.

Bonnie has created a link-up so that you may see what other participants are doing - click on this LINK.


After all this time I've realised that I prefer it when the photos are in landscape orientation!

And today our neighbour's house is being used for a film location for a European advert.  The film company asked if they could put a light in our driveway....  is this supposed to be sunlight streaming through the window?

Allietare part 3 done

67 four patches in gold and neutral done!

--

Karen

Tuesday evening...

I worked on Celtic Solstice - added the first border, and sewed together the blocks for the second border.

 

And these are all the left-over part, this is a deep tray!  All the cutting was for the king-size quilt... silly me, what was I thinking!  It will be about 75" x 75" anyway!  It will be fun to play with the left-overs.

 

Dug out an old leader and ender box of pieces ready to make these scrappy stars.  They are only 4.5" square (finish at 4") and I have about 20 made, and all the parts for about 10 more.  I love them!

 And added the final row to this quilt - blocks won some time ago, to which I added the almost solid colour pieces.  Needs a border or two, but not sure what yet.

Mystery Quilt Catch-up

Well, I dithered from the time Bonnie Hunter announced her Allietare! Mystery Quilt fabric requirements at the end of October, until last Wednesday.  Before starting this Mystery, I had to push myself to get Celtic Solstice (Mystery 2013!) to a point that it might become a quilt, and with a sewing Saturday with a great group of ladies in early November this was achieved.  I haven't taken a picture yet, but Amanda took this photo!  I have enough units left over to make another one!

I thought it was time to do a mystery with a change to the suggested colours, but after agonising for days over different colour combinations, and deciding that if I wanted to keep up with each part of the mystery, I should just stick to published colours.  I found I had a metre of a lovely blue-grey Michael Miller fabric, and that clinched it.  And so far I am soooo glad, as the colours are just right.  Started and finished Part 1 on the Wednesday (meant to make 140, but made +200 half-square triangle units), and Part 2 on the day it was released (40 sewn units)!  The secret is that I am only making half the number of units, and except for the grey, all the other pieces so far have come from strips already cut.   See, it pays off to spend hours cutting up after other projects!

Bonnie has up a link-up page for participants to share their progress - go have a look at the huge variety of fabrics being used in this mystery!  Can't wait for the next part on Friday!

Weekly Work in Progress Update #2

Well, this is a surprise - managing to write some notes for a second week time!  But as I didn't have any pictures until today, didn't publish the post!

Two weeks ago:
Saturday - all-day sew-in with monthly quilt group - put two sets of blocks together (borders next), and stitched the centre of Celtic Solstice (inner border and pieced borders next)!  Yay, now have clear conscience to join in with Bonnie Hunter when she releases the first part of her year end mystery later this month.  Added two more bias strips to Sim's Curvy Squares.


Sunday - refolded about 40% of fabrics to get them to fit in wire drawers in cupboards (did another 40% about two months ago) - the rest will remain as is for now.  This is the start of a big sort out - there is a need to cull the clutter that breeds when the door is shut.

Created this table runner for an early Christmas gift.

Three blocks measuring 5" by 18.5" for December's Block Lotto. Ridiculously easy to make from scraps!  I can see more of this for fun in the future.  There are lovely photos of quilts made by Maree with scraps on this site.

Added the orange bias strips to this work in progress.

 Prepped some 8 cm diameter hexagons for a community project, only due in Feb (so I am getting ahead on some things!)

November's colour at Soscrappy was lime green.  I had pulled out all the scrap and string pieces in this colour at the beginning of the month, and the first chance I had to do anything with it was this past Saturday (December already!), when it turned into all of this.... a slab of strings, four kite blocks, and 13 made fabric pieces.  I seemed to have lot of 1.25" plain lime strips, and I don't remember what project they came from, but glad they were there as they have a nice unifying effect on the made fabric. This is going to be the basis for 2016 for using up the scraps.  Not quite quilts, or even blocks yet, but moving in right direction!

More to follow soon!